Chapter Eight #2
The words sit heavy, and Harper watches me. There’s fear in her eyes now, but not of me. For me. And that might be the thing that finally ruins me.
“I follow orders,” I say, and her shoulders lower a fraction.
Savage nods and walks away to make calls, leaving us in the wreckage of cracked vending glass, drying blood, and everything we’re not saying.
“You punched hospital property,” Harper says, and I shrug. “That’s probably frowned upon.”
“Probably.”
“You know I’m mad about it.”
“I know.”
“You also know I’m not as mad as I should be.”
My gaze drops to her mouth before I can stop it, and her breath catches.
The hospital around us fades. Bad lighting. Antiseptic. Distant monitors. None of it matters when she looks at me like that. Like, she sees the monster and the man and hasn’t decided which one to run from.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say.
Her brows pull together. “Like what?”
“Like you’re thinking about kissing me.”
Color rises in her cheeks. “I’m not.”
“Liar,” I whisper and lean closer.
Her eyes flash. “You are extremely irritating for someone with the emotional range of a locked gun cabinet.”
I step closer, and she doesn’t retreat. “Harper.”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask anything.”
“You were about to.”
I was. Not for a kiss but for something worse. I was about to ask her to wait for me. Not to look at any other man the way she looks at me. To keep breathing until I come back. To let me be the thing between her and death, even if she hates how good I am at it.
Instead, I say, “Stay with the guards.” She looks disappointed.
That shouldn’t please me, but it does.
“That’s what you wanted to say?” she asks.
“No.”
Her eyes search mine. There’s too much between us now. Too much blood. Too much truth. Too much almost.
“What did you want to say?” she whispers.
I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to move. When she doesn’t, my fingers brush her jaw, barely touching the smear of blood I missed earlier. Her skin is warm. Soft. Alive.
“I wanted to say I don’t know how to do this without becoming worse.”
Her face softens, and it scares the hell out of me. “Then don’t become worse,” she says. “Become precise.”
A rough breath leaves me. Only Harper Quinn would look at a man like me and prescribe a cleaner form of violence. “Do you understand what you’re asking?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then explain it.”
I lean closer. Not kissing her. Not yet.
Just close enough that my voice can stay between us.
“If I go tonight and Reaper is there, I’ll end him.
” Her eyes don’t move from mine. “If men stand between him and me, I’ll go through them.
” Her breathing changes. “If anyone touches you again, I won’t be precise.
I won’t be controlled. I’ll be what they already think I am. ”
Her fingers curl around my wrist, not pulling away but holding on.
“And what if I ask you to come back with blood on your hands but your head clear?” she asks.
My throat works. No one has ever asked that of me. Men point me toward violence and call it useful. Women touch danger and call it exciting until they see its truth. The club trusts me to break things. Enemies trust me to hurt them.
Harper is asking me to choose. Not whether to be violent. Whether to be ruled by it.
“I can try,” I say.
Her eyes shine. “Okay.”
That one word nearly brings me to my knees. I lower my forehead to hers, just for a second, a dangerous second. Her hand slides from my wrist to my chest again but this time, she leaves it there.
“You’re coming back,” she says.
It’s not a question but a stated fact I agree with. “Yes.”
“And if you get shot, I’m going to be very angry.”
“I assumed.”
“And if you die, I will resurrect you so that I can kill you myself.”
That almost gets a smile out of me. “Understood.”
Footsteps approach. Saint stops several feet away and very pointedly looks at the cracked vending machine instead of us. “We’re ready.”
I pull back slowly, and Harper’s hand falls away. Cold rushes in where she was, and I hate it.
She wraps her arms around herself, armor back in place. “Go do your terrifying biker strategy thing.”
“Stay here,” I reply.
“Don’t die.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Bossy.”
Her mouth twitches. “Yes.” There she is.
I turn before I touch her again. Before I kiss her in front of my President, my brother, and half of County Hospital. Before I make promises neither of us is ready to survive.
Savage waits near the exit. Saint falls in beside me.
“You good?” Saint asks.
“No.”
“Figured.”
We walk through the automatic doors into the hot Vegas night. The vans are waiting with armed men. Engines are running low. The city stretches ahead, neon and shadow, full of places men go to bleed.
Raven is standing in front of Savage, a frown marring her face. She is clearly unhappy with how tonight is playing out, but she won’t make too much of a fuss.
“Reaper is using her because he thinks women are leverage. Men like that always forget women bite. She isn’t some damsel in distress waiting for one of you to rescue her. She can rescue herself.”
Savage sighs. “You’re right. But now isn’t the time for that.”
“Whatever.” She kisses him quickly. “You better come back.” And with that, she sashays away from all of us.
Before I climb into the front passenger seat, I hear running behind me.
I turn quickly, only for Harper to run right into my arms. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me down, kissing me with abandon.
All sounds around us fall away as I tangle my hand in her hair and angle her head how I want her.
I lose myself in her taste for a long moment before she pulls back.
She stares at me with half-lidded eyes. “Just an incentive to come back.”
She walks away without another word, and I fall into the front seat. Savage drives and for a while, neither of us speaks.
Then he says, “You claimed her.”
My jaw tightens. “No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
I stare through the windshield. “She was the one doing the claiming.”
Savage turns the van onto the highway, heading toward Henderson and whatever trap Reaper thinks he’s laid.
“You’re sure?” he asks.
I think of Harper’s hand on my chest. Her voice cutting through Reaper’s bait. Her eyes when she told me to become precise instead of worse. Her lips on mine as if they belonged.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I’m in it.”
Savage nods. “Then keep your head. Because if she matters, you don’t get the luxury of losing it.”
The warehouse lights appear in the distance twenty minutes later. Rusted fence. Broken windows. Too many shadows. Clearly, a trap.
I check my gun. Then my knife. Then the bandage on my hand.
Savage cuts the headlights and the vans roll into darkness. Men get quiet around me. This is what I know. Blood. Breath. Timing. The moment before violence opens its mouth. But tonight, under all of it, something new lives in my chest.
A command that isn’t from my president. A promise that isn’t to my club.
Come back.
So, when the first Vulture steps out of the shadows with a gun in his hand, I don’t charge. I don’t roar, I don’t become worse, I become precise.
And the night starts bleeding.